


A Beginning

by sbuggbot



Series: Voltbot Armilly [1]
Category: SteamWorld Quest (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Backstory, Don't copy to another site, Gen, Kid Fic, Pastfic, Sick Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-23
Updated: 2019-05-23
Packaged: 2020-03-09 19:48:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18923851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sbuggbot/pseuds/sbuggbot
Summary: "Coperncia crept down the hall, hugging the big book to her chest and listening closely. Surely she hadn't imagined that odd sound?"A somewhat canon-divergent story about the time Copernica met Armilly, when the latter had just recently arrived in Goosebucket.





	A Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> I will say off the bat that this story is more aligned with a headcanon/AU I have involving Armilly rather than the game's canon, but the fic doesn't really go into detail about that very much unless you tilt your head and squint at it. It's still an important event in that storyline, though.

_“You just have to take in any sick or injured creature you find, don’t you?”_

_“Didn’t you see how hard it was raining the other day? And the poor dear was so weak she could hardly move…”_

_“Not sure if she’ll make it through the week...all we can do is hope.”_

Copernica watched the best she could from the other room. Things were always blurry from that far away; too blurry to make out details.  At least she could still listen, but what were they talking about?

Her parents were visiting their friends' home. Copernica was too little to leave at home by herself, so that meant she had to tag along too. But the adults were discussing “grown-up things” right now, which meant Copernica had to play in another room. Being a little kid that wasn’t quite school-aged yet (but very close), she could only amuse herself for so long. And squinting at her parents as they talked to their longtime friends was getting tiring.

She thought she could hear something from down the hall. _What's that?_ she thought to herself. She quickly decided it was worth investigating. Copernica glanced back at her parents. Still looked pretty distracted. She snuck over and carefully took her father's spellbook. Its contents weren't of much use to her yet, but she liked the feeling it had in her arms. It almost seemed to tingle. It never happened with any other book she's held, just this one.

With that, down the hall she went.

_“Didn’t you two always want a kid...hold on, where’s my spellbook?”_

_“Never mind your book, where’d Copernica go?”_

 

Copernica crept down the hall, hugging the big book to her chest and listening closely. Surely she hadn’t imagined that odd sound? Hold on--there it was again. A hoarse wheezing noise, coming from that door right there. She found herself chewing on her knuckle. The noise sounded  _horrible_ , like it was coming from some big scary monster or something. But she was too curious to go running back to her parents just yet. She swallowed her fear and pushed the door open.

It was a bedroom, dimly lit by a single lamp. It was just bright enough to scare off any monsters, Copernica noted, but not so bright that you couldn’t sleep. The curtains were shut as well, not that it was light enough outside to do much. Most importantly, though, the room seemed to be clear of any monsters. She squinted at the bed. Not that it was suspect; she literally couldn’t tell if it was empty or not. Too blurry from across the room. She inched into the room and looked around.

That wheeze again. Copernica froze and squeezed her book to her chest. It had come from the bed.

It wasn’t from a monster hiding under the bed, she realized, it was from someone _in_ the bed. There was a little kid who couldn’t be much older than she was huddled up in the blankets. Copernica had never seen her before. “H-hello?” she whispered.

The other kid tried to reply but all she managed was several coughs. The poor dear was in horrible shape; her bellows rattled with every breath and she didn’t have the energy to do much more than lay there. She was practically radiating heat, too. Nevertheless, she watched Copernica intently. It was probably boring laying around in here alone, she figured.

“I-I’m Copernica.” She climbed onto the foot of the bed.

“Armilly,” the other bot wheezed.

Coperncia managed to learn a bit about Armilly, but not very much since she couldn’t talk much in her current state. She could only wheeze out a word or two at a time. Copernica found out that she wasn’t from Goosebucket and wasn’t related to either of her parents’ friends, either. Copernica couldn’t get a clear answer when she asked where Armilly lived. The couple had just taken her in because she was alone and sick, it seemed. Armilly didn’t have parents or any memory of having parents, which left Copernica pretty confused. What bot doesn't have _any_ parents at all? That led to Copernica explaining and talking about her own family, which Armilly seemed rather interested in hearing about.

After a while, Armilly’s eyes glazed over and she made some feeble attempts to kick her blanket off. She was getting too hot again for what might have been the umpteenth time today. She had either been burning up or feeling like she was freezing the past day or so, the closest thing to an in-between was feeling both hot and cold at the same time. It wasn’t a happy medium at all.

“Armilly? What's wrong?”

“Too hot..." She fumbled for the damp towels she had been left with and found to her annoyance that they weren’t even remotely cool anymore. They’d been sitting near her fevered body for too long. She let out a groan that turned into a harsh, rattling cough that made her chest hurt. Ugh, the coughing was always way worse when she felt too hot, and this time she felt way hotter than before. Too bad coolant didn’t seem to do much for her; it just gave her horrid chills and did little to actually bring her temperature down.

Copernica got an idea. She opened the book she always held so close to her and began flipping through it. Maybe she could try casting a spell? She hadn’t ever tried it before, though. Eventually, she found a page mentioning ice. That could help Armilly, right? She picked up the damp towels. Now, how did her father cast? She focused on the runes in the book and thought as hard as she could about making the towels in her hands colder.

Somehow, it worked.

Several of the symbols in the book began to glow and an icy cloud formed around Copernica’s hands. It startled her so badly that she slipped off of the bed with a yelp. She laid there totally baffled for a moment before she registered the cold feeling on her middle. It worked! The towels were much cooler now, even kinda frosty on the outside! Copernica sat there in awe for a few moments before Armilly’s panting reminded her what she had to do.

After folding the towels the other way so the icy part was inside, she put the towels back on Armilly’s shoulders and forehead. Right away Copernica could see the relief on Armilly's face; she practically melted under the cool cloth. She mumbled a soft “thank you”.

The rest of the lights in the room flipped on, startling Copernica and making Armilly flinch and hide her eyes from the sudden brightness. “There you are, Copernica!” Her mother burst into the room, followed by her father and one of their friends. “You just disappeared on us and then I heard you fall, are you okay?”

“Uh-huh,” Copernica replied with a nod. She pointed at the bed (and her new friend). “That's Armilly.”

“Yes, we were just talking about her. She isn't feeling well, why were you in here?”

“I heard a funny noise and when I went to go find it, I found her. We started talking and then she got too hot so I made her towels all cold again…”

“How’d you manage that?” her father asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I used your book, Papa!”

Any residual annoyance in her father's demeanor evaporated at that moment. His eyes lit up. “You cast?! Oh, I can't believe I missed your first spell!!” He scooped her up into a big hug, absolutely over the moon as he prattled about how exciting this was.

Copernica's mother sighed. “We're lucky she didn't hurt herself, dear.” Ideally, Copernica wouldn't have tried casting for _at least_ a few more years; there would have been a much smaller chance of whatever spell she tried backfiring on her by then.

“It's a good thing she did do that, though,” their friend said as she checked Armilly's temperature with her thumb. “I don't think Armilly's body could have handled her getting much warmer.” The bot in question made a fatigued little grunt in response.

“Come on, Copernica, let's let Armilly rest for now…” She began to guide Copernica out of the room.

“Can I visit her when she’s feeling better?” she asked.

Her mother hesitated and waited until they were a little ways away from the spare room. She didn't want Armilly to overhear, nor was she eager to tell her daughter this. “If she gets better,” she said.

The choice of words didn’t go over Copernica's head. “If?” she asked warily. 

“She’s very sick and not reacting to medicine the way you'd expect,” her father said. “We aren’t sure if she _is_ going to get better or not yet.”

Copernica hugged onto him and looked down at the floor. “I hope she does,” she murmured.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, Armilly does get better.
> 
> And aww look, Babby Coco casted her first spell...that might have even helped Armilly more than she realized.


End file.
